Arizona Outperforms North Carolina for Democrats

Assuming the current tally holds, AZ now stands at 49.03 Trump 45.46 Clinton, a margin of 3.6%, closer than NC’s 3.8%.  This is important given NC may have seen the greatest investment per vote of any battleground state by Clinton/DNC, and AZ perhaps the least.   Remarkably, AZ outperformed IA, NC and OH for Democrats this year, and has become a place of true opportunity for Ds in the years ahead. 

2016 left us with a new national electorate college map, among other things moving AZ into the core of the battleground and Texas onto its edges (TX outperformed IA for Clinton, and almost matched OH).

It is important to note that the three states where Democrats gained the most ground in 2016 were Texas, California and Arizona, states with large numbers of Hispanics and Millennial voters.  In fact Texas now has a higher share of Millennials and Hispanics than California - today's Texas is a very different state than it was a generation ago.  Clinton won under 45s in Texas by 6 points, 49% to 43%. 

And as we’ve written, many of the key battlegrounds Democrats lost in 2016 (FL, MI, OH, PA, WI) were among the lowest in the nation in Millennial share of the vote.   Many of the states that held for Democrats, or gained – AZ, CA, CO, NV, TX, VA – are in the upper end of Millennial share.   In fact Texas now has a higher share of Millennials and Hispanics than California – a reason it moved so aggressively towards the Dems with little investment.   See our recent report on Millennials for more on this.   Millennials jumped from 19% of the electorate in 2012 to 29% in 2016 according to an election night survey by Democracy Corps.   And their arrival in the electorate will increasingly matter for both parties in the years ahead.

For more on how young voters performed in 2016, see this new study from Tufts/Tisch College's CIRCLE.  It is a must read on the 2016 outcomes.